You’ve already heard the best thing this album has to offer, the single Love Never Felt So Good.

Jackson wrote the song with Paul Anka in 1983. One other song from those sessions, I Never Heard, was retitled This Is It for the posthumous compilation of the same name in 2009.

Love Never Felt So Good was released by Johnny Mathis in 1984, and a demo version exists on You Tube that reinforces it was obviously never finished, hence it was unreleased.

The Xscape version wisely recreates Disco Michael, trying to sound like he did circa Off the Wall. There are lots of lush strings and his voice soars on the chorus.

The deluxe edition of the album features a version turned into a beyond-the-grave duet with Justin Timberlake that’s a good business decision but a so-so creative one.

Chicago is another highlight on Xscape.

It wasn’t written by Jackson. That’s no problem — some of his best songs including Rock With You and Thriller came from Rod Temperton.

Cory Rooney, who wrote Chicago, is best known for writing Destiny’s Child and Jennifer Lopez hits, so you’d suggest it’s a recent recording.

Timbaland uses squelchy beats and 80s synths but it’s the lyrics and vocals that dominate here.

Jackson swings from singing quietly in the verses, like he would in a ballad, to Billie Jean style anger in the chorus.

In action ... Michael Jackson performs during a concert at Vincennes, near Paris in 1992. Picture: Bertrand GuaySource: AFP

That’s because the lyrics see Jackson addressing a man whose wife he’d been having an affair with, although the woman said she was single.

He sings “She tried to live a double life, loving me while she was still your wife, she thought that loving me was cool, while you at work and the kids at school, … she’d lie to you, lie to me, ‘cos she got a family..”

Loving You comes from the period before Jackson ramped up the ‘chamones’ and ‘hee hers’, Timbaland gives it a jazzy disco feel but the vocals suggest it may have worked better as a ballad.

A Place With No Name was produced by Rihanna hitmakers Stargate. The song borrows from America’s Horse With No Name (author Dewey Bunnell gets a co-writing credit), and Stargate borrow from MJ’s Leave Me Alone for the musical vibe.

Slave To The Rhythm was written in 1989. Timbaland now finishes it with his playful percussion, but the original version didn’t really have much of a tune, which is probably why Jackson never picked it for Dangerous. And Timbaland hasn’t remedied that. There’s a version out there with Justin Bieber, which wisely was left off this album — poor MJ’s been through enough.

Michael Jackson

1991’s Do You Know Where Your Children Are probably never made Dangerous for two reasons — it doesn’t sound like a No. 1 hit and Jackson’s lyrics are fairly graphic.

It’s the story of a 12-year-old girl who ends up being pimped out on Sunset Boulevard.

“She wrote that she is tired of stepdaddy using her, saying that he’ll buy her things, while sexually abusing her,” Jackson sings.

Blue Gangsta is for diehards only, and the backing vocalists are doing their best to sound like Michael. This one could have happily stayed lost.

The title track was started by Rodney Jerkins and is now finished by him, complete with his ‘Darkchild’ vocal watermark.

It sounds like Jackson’s ’90s swingbeat Dangerous period; the vocals change so much you presume they were pieced together from various takes. When a song didn’t make the patchy Invincible album you know it’s not particularly special.

There are two ways of looking at the 34 minute running time. Perhaps they’re keeping with the theme of the ’80s when, pre CDs, albums were less than ten tracks and uniformly short.

Or, more likely, they’re rationing the salvageable material for even more albums. There were 24 songs from the vaults picked for this album, and only eight made the cut. You do the maths.

The album is designed to showcase how good Jackson’s voice is, but this is not news. There is a reason songs aren’t released; not everything superstars write is designed to be heard.

After all the hype at the end of the eight songs there’s something that should never follow hearing Michael Jackson — a sense of being seriously underwhelmed. To paraphrase what should have been his final tour you’re left thinking — is that it?

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